Special Issue:

Service systems are socio-technical systems that enable value co-creation. Service systems engineering (SSE) calls for research on evidence-based design knowledge for such systems that permeate our society. The ongoing process of digitization renders more and more systems capable of contextualizing what they deliver to individual and institutional actors. In doing so, these systems seek to engage their actors in a process of value co-creation. The contextualization and collaboration are essential characteristics of smart service systems in many domains, such as manufacturing, healthcare, public administration, energy, logistics, or mobility. As contextualization and collaboration are information-intensive processes, information systems research is ideally positioned to contribute to our understanding the underlying principles that unite these systems and help us to further the design knowledge for the systematic engineering of service systems under conditions of instability and change.

Better design knowledge could particularly advance the architecture, the interactions, and the resource base of service systems, helping value creation to become better adapted to the context of need and opportunities for collaboration between customers and service providers. Service system architectures provide the foundation for novel business models, such as service platforms and/or data-driven services. The architecture of a service system integrates organizational and technical resources and facilitates smart processes of value co-creation. Digitization radically changes how service systems interact with actors, e.g. through machine-to-machine communication, augmented or virtual reality or novel forms of natural language interfaces. Thus, design knowledge on how to enable and leverage such novel forms of interaction is warranted. Finally, digitization can significantly expand the resource base of service systems as smart devices help to connect to physical resources and human actors beyond the boundaries of organizations. Again, leveraging user-generated data and services as well as resources made available through sharing services could become key components in the design of future service systems.

The special issue on service systems engineering provides an opportunity for consolidating evidence-based design knowledge on service systems. We particularly invite, but are not limited to, papers that are based on (action) design research or the piloting of IT-enabled service systems. Research submitted to this special issue can focus on a specific domain of service systems but should ideally seek to generalize findings beyond a specific domain.

Issues include but are not limited to:

• • Architectural patterns of IT-enabled service systems
  • Models, methods and tools for service systems engineering
  • Engineering of data-driven service systems
  • Engineering of cyber-physical service systems
  • Novel socio-technical components of service systems (e.g. for interaction and/or resource mobilization)
  • Novel areas of application with specific implications for contextualized design and engineering of IT-enabled service systems
  • User-generated services in service systems and user integration in service systems engineering
  • Digital work in service systems engineering
  • Learning and unlearning in service systems engineering
  • Service systems engineering and (service-oriented) business models

Please submit papers by 2017-11-01 at the latest via the journal’s online submission system (http://www.editorialmanager.com/buis/). Please observe the instructions regarding the format and size of contributions to Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE). Submissions should adhere to the BISE author guidelines at http://www.bise-journal.org.
All papers will be reviewed anonymously (double-blind process) by at least two referees with regard to relevance, originality, and research quality. In addition to the editors of the journal, including those of this special focus, distinguished international professionals with scientific and practical backgrounds will be involved in the review process.

Schedule

Anticipated publication date:October 2018

Editors

Prof. Dr. Tilo Böhmann
Universität Hamburg, Department of Informatics
Research Group IT Management & Consulting (ITMC)
Vogt-Kölln-Str. 30
22527 Hamburg
Germany
tilo.boehmann@uni-hamburg.de

Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister
University of St. Gallen
Institute of Information Management (IWI HSG)
Mueller-Friedberg-Strasse 8
9000 St. Gallen
Switzerland
JanMarco.Leimeister@unisg.ch
Universität Kassel
Research Group Information Systems
Research Center IT Design (ITeG)
Pfannkuchstr. 1
34121 Kassel
Germany
leimeister@uni-kassel.de

Prof. Dr. Kathrin Möslein
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Institute of Information Systems
Lange Gasse 20
90403 Nürnberg & HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management
Germany
kathrin.moeslein@fau.de